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Highlights (song)
, Southside , Plain Pat , Goldstein }} "Highlights" is a song by American hip-hop artist Kanye West that features vocals from Young Thug and The-Dream throughout, which is from his seventh studio album, The Life of Pablo (2016). Demos Very shortly after West's album had been released, a version of "Highlights" with Madonna on the chorus was leaked online. The original version, which featured vocals from Young Thug & The-Dream (like the final version) and was recorded in 2015, also became a victim of an online leak. A version featuring solely Thug became a victim of this too. Composition and lyrics The track comes straight after "Low Lights" on The Life of Pablo's tracklist, making it appropriately titled and the previous song serves as an intro to "Highlights" in a way. By the time that all the changes had been made to the album in June 2016, the song was remixed with Thug's vocals sounding more polished. West references his brother-in-law Rob Kardashian in the track, rapping: "Blac Chyna f**king Rob, help him with the weight/I wish my trainer would, tell me what I overate". Despite these lines being rapped, West showed support for Rob two months afterwards, showing that it was a playful jab and not a diss like the lyrics about Ray J. Release The Life of Pablo was scheduled to be titled "Waves" at one point and "Highlights" was set to be a part of Act 2 on one of the track lists for the album. When West later shared the album's tracklist via Twitter, it was scheduled to be titled "High Lights", but the title was changed to the single word "Highlights" when the album was officially released. Song analysis The track's lyrical content is focused around the newfound fame and fortune that Kanye witnessed in life after being married with Kim Kardashian West. Multiple subjects relevant to this are touched on within it, with the rapper leaving barely anything about their lives off the table. Critical reception The Guardian's Alexis Petridis described the song, along with fellow The Life of Pablo tracks "Low Lights" and "Ultralight Beam", as not feeling 'episodic so much as fractured'. Young Thug's appearance on "Highlights" was described by Rolling Stone as being a high profile guest that plays 'the role of Yeezy's sick conscience' by Rob Sheffield. Saturday Night Live performance Kanye performed "Highlights" alongside "Ultralight Beam" on Saturday Night Live and also shared the audio of "Low Lights", the very day before the album featuring all of them was officially released. Immediately after this performance, West made the announcement of The Life of Pablo being released, telling those viewing: "Kanye West dot com right now, Tidal streaming right now.". Controversy In the song, when West raps: "I bet me and Ray J would be been friends/If we ain't love the same b***h/Yeah, he might've hit it first/Only problem is I'm rich", this is clearly a diss directed towards his wife's ex-boyfriend Ray J. There is an explicit reference to Ray J's infamous 2013 diss track "I Hit It First", which is not the first time West has clapped back at him for the release of this track, since he once dissed Ray J in return on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon when changing the lyrics to his 2013 single "Bound 2". However, Ray J never responded to being name-dropped in "Highlights", but did give a negative response to the music video for West's song "Famous" from the very same album, which features a nude model of him in it. Music video On 10 July 2016, it was revealed that the rapper had shot a music video for the song in Iceland. By the time West marked his first release of material since The Life of Pablo with single "Lift Yourself" in 2018, the music video hadn't been released, meaning that it's most likely never going to become available. Commercial performance Upon the release of the featuring album, the track debuted at number 4 on the US ''Billboard'' Bubbling Under Hot 100 and remained on that chart for a total of four weeks. Within the same week, "Highlights" made its debut at number 41 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and never charted again on it afterwards. It failed to reach the top 100 of the UK Singles Chart, but came close when charting at number 108 in the UK. Charts References External links * Category:2016 songs Category:Alternative hip hop songs Category:Kanye West songs Category:Song recordings produced by Kanye West Category:Song recordings produced by Mike Dean (record producer) Category:Songs written by Kanye West Category:Songs written by The-Dream Category:Songs written by Mike Dean (record producer) Category:Songs written by Southside (record producer) Category:Songs written by Young Thug Category:Songs written by Plain Pat Category:Young Thug songs Category:The-Dream songs